See me after class
B+ for music but a C- for attitude, says Pat Gilbert. Morrissey ★★★ Low In High School BMG. CD/DL/LP
INTENT AND context are crucial to understanding any art. And so to the moral maze that is Morrissey’s millennial solo career. Long cast, or posing, as the persecuted outsider/exile, the singer’s increasingly bothersome public proclamations have made his world-view ever trickier to fathom. Chinese people are a “sub-species” on animal welfare issues, London mayor Sadiq Khan is ineffectual as he eats “halal butchered beings”, Nigel Farage is “a liberal educator”, ad nauseam. The uneasy relationship between Moz’s oft irksome utterances and his music – invariably nuanced and deeply humanistic – reaches a truly disorientating apogee on Low In High School. Recorded in France and Italy by veteran producer Joe Chiccarelli, who also ministered to 2014’s World Peace Is None Of Your Business, the album is a similarly glistening and richly textured beast, alive with trademark galloping glam rock, ebullient chanson and haunting piano balladry. But the whiff of controversy is immediate: two titles, The Girl From Tel Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel and stirring closer Israel, clearly reference his divisive new love affair with that titular Middle Eastern state. Alarm bells ring: is Morrissey here showing solidarity with the Jewish race to obviate accusations of racism? Or is he trying to wind up the Arab world? Morrissey, arch as ever, knows that critics will conclude one or the other, or both; yet forensic scrutiny of the lyrics reveals The Girl From Tel Aviv… is actually a damning condemnation of US foreign policy and its attacks on – Muslim – populations for their oil. In Israel, meanwhile, he pointedly sings, “I can’t answer for what armies do, they are not you…” The theme of governments and military going about their business while ordinary folk suffer is the big statement here. In Your Lap references the chaos following the Arab Spring, while seven-minute epic I Bury The Living picks apart the morality of soldiering, its bitter gallows humour (“Give me an order/I’ll blow up your daughter”) one of this record’s noir-ish highlights. You can’t help concluding this is Morrissey presenting himself as alternative statesman, of the people, for the people. Low In High School’s standard of songs is undoubtedly high, whether it’s the Smiths-y Jacky’s Only Happy When She’s Up On The Stage, or the shimmering Home Is A Question Mark, with its shout-out to French actor-showjumper Guillaume Canet. It’s only When You Open Your Legs that summons a wince. This album is partisan, powerful and controversial. It’s also proof that Morrissey should stop making stupid, inflammatory remarks and concentrate on expressing his views through his records.